BETHLEHEM, Thursday, May 23, 2024 (WAFA) – Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shaheen inaugurated a Bethlehem Bible College conference in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem.
Minister Shaheen opened the 7th Christ at the Checkpoint, a bi-annual conference that is hosted by the Bethlehem Bible College during the period from 21 to 26 May 2024 in Bethlehem.
Speaking on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas at the opening session, Minister Shaheen considered international participation in the conference as indicative of profound international solidarity with the Palestinian people and support for its struggle to regain their inalienable legitimate rights, particularly that the conference coincides with Israel’s ongoing genocidal offensive on the Gaza Strip, which resulted in killing at least 35,800 Palestinians and injuring over 80,200 other, and comes just six days after Palestinians commemorated the 76th anniversary of the Nakba.
She stated that the last eight months have been catastrophic for Palestinians, given the ongoing Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, which she considered to be one of the most heinous atrocities committed since the Second World War, as well as escalating Israeli colonist attacks in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
She added that the Palestinian people are not less important or equal than others, as all peoples are created by God, while affirming that the Bible should be used as a tool for liberation, and not as a tool for the entrenching of the Israeli colonization, occupation and the expulsion of Palestinians from their land with utter disregard for their suffering for over seven decades.
She called for more efforts to raise the voice and decry the Palestinian people’s suffering at the hands of the Israeli occupation, while identifying the Israeli occupation’s systematic policies and measures of incitement against Palestinians, the enactment of laws perpetuating hate speech, the desecration of holy sites, banning family reunifications, revocation of residency rights, the imposition of taxes on churches and church-affiliated organizations, the tightened restrictions imposed on Palestinians’ movement, the lack of freedom of warship along with associated economic deterioration as manifest in high unemployment rates and high living costs as the main reasons for dwindling numbers of Palestinian Christians.
She pointed out that the only way to limit Christian immigration from the Holy Land and the whole region is through peacemaking. To this end, she added, efforts must continue to be made not only to highlight the threats emanating from the Zionist reading of the Bible, a tool used to justify Israeli settler-colonialism of Palestine, but also to hold Israel accountable for its violations of Palestinians’ rights in international forums.
She concluded that peace could not prevail unless the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is brought to an end and the independent and sovereign State of Palestine is established.
According to Bethlehem Bible College, the aim of Christ at the Checkpoint is “to provide an opportunity for Evangelical Christians to prayerfully seek a proper awareness of issues of peace, justice, and reconciliation. We seek to renew the biblical call for justice and mercy in contexts of oppression and compel a unified mission of the global Church.”
K.F.
